Bloemfontein Celtic are preparing to fight Cape Town City for midfielder Lyle Lakay.

Lakay, who was with Celtic since August 2012, has penned a three-year deal with his hometown outfit.

This, however, has infuriated Celtic who are claiming the player still belongs to them because they took up their one-year option to keep him.

Celtic have refused to hand over his clearance to City.

The player's representatives insist that Celtic missed the deadline to exercise their option, but the club's chief executive Khumbulani Konco is singing a different tune.

"That's what the reports say. Maybe that's what Lyle told people [that it was late]," he told Sowetan yesterday.

Konco also confirmed that they are taking the matter to the Premier Soccer League's dispute resolution chamber (DRC). "I think this will go to the DRC and we will sort it out there. We were surprised to see him being unveiled as their player. We had an option and we exercised that option," Konco added.

Lakay, meanwhile, has insisted that Celtic were late and is therefore free to move on.

"They were supposed to exercise the option by February 2 and they gave me the letter on May 24," the player has confirmed.

Despite his claim that Celtic were late, Lakay went ahead and signed the letter at the advice of his agent, Vasili Barbis, but was instructed to make sure to put down the date (May 24) at the bottom.

"He's my agent and he advised me to do that. So I signed the letter," he said.

Barbis, who was in hospital attending to an urgent matter, was not available for comment yesterday.

Cape Town City boss John Comitis said they took the player and his agent's word in signing him.

"We were informed by both [the] player and agent that Celtic did not follow due process to exercise [the] option. We await [the] outcome," Comitis, who's in Greece, replied via text message yesterday.